Seeking out promotion is often a move to some sort of supervisory role. As a supervisor, it is important to not only know your team, but be connected to them. Know about them, know what motivates them, know how they react, know what they love doing and know what really grinds their gears. Not every supervisor understands the power of understanding their team. But the ones who do are extremely successful, and any good leader will seek to promote a person who gets along well with others and makes an effort to be in relationship with other workers.
The best supervisors and managers understand their people, because people are their job. Being personable is extremely important in any role that involves managing people because people who like their leader perform better. Making a greater effort to stay engaged, be involved, feeling more motivated, and under the right conditions, inspired.
On each team I have been on, I always do my best to get along with each and every team member. Taking the time to understand them as a person in their likes and dislikes, as well as get to know them on a personal level, staying involved in their life outside of work. This can be difficult at times as people might try to pull the friend card, but at the end of the day, knowing you’re in charge in the work relationship makes this personal relationship an overall win.
When you understand a person, you understand as listed above, what motivates them, how they will react, what they love doing, and the things that grind their gears. When you fully understand your team, delegating tasks becomes clear and team efficiency overall improves. I can prove it – While supervising the Garden Department at Home Depot, I took the time to get to know and understand each of my associates and find their strengths, weaknesses, likes, and dislikes. I found that delegating people to tasks they loved made our department perform better as people who are doing what they love, love to do it well. The associates who were extremely skilled in customer service and found joy in it had the job of helping customers, and the associates who loved organizing worked to keep the overheads organized and my associate who loved driving the machines was the guy to grab when a truck needed unloaded, or a pallet needed dropped. The list is exhaustive, but overall, when you put people to work at things they love, they lose their work mentality and step into their hobby mentality, and I think we all put more effort into our hobbies than the things that feel like work. (For some of us, there is an exception in that doing work is what we love and that turns out to bring about our hobby mentality)
When you are seeking promotion, being in good relationship with the entire team is something managers will look at. They want to avoid promoting someone who is going to cause issues within the team over held grudges, hurt feelings, and petty acts; likewise, they want someone who brings energy by being fun to be around, understands others, and knows the team.
While steps 1-6 are important in proving your perceived organizational efforts, connecting with your team is going to give you positive references when a promotion is up for grabs. It also shows the management team that you are personable and able to build relationships through which positive interactions will occur to encourage performance and growth within the team.
Connection and service are complimentary of one another; the more you serve someone, the more you will connect, and the more you connect, the more opportunities you will have to serve them. Connecting with others is crucial to being a leader of servantude, and connection is the pavement on the bridge to organizational success.
Love your perspective! HB